Floor 2, Court Hall 2

After visiting the Court room, there are a few more things to explore in the court hall.

The Dome of Last Hope

The bulbous dome has meticulate patterns that tease the light from outside and looks particularly sparkly and glistening when the sun is out. It was created there to give prisoners a sense of lost hope, it is located directly above where the stairs (in the court hall) make a sharp right turn up to the second level. It bulbs outward from the ceiling to the outside like a half bubble. It does offer lots of brightness to the room below. It was installed long after the palace was built as a last notion of peculiar architecture.

The 2nd level landing

All that is up here is the lattice window stretching across the wall, one can look down upon the court room from here. At the rear of this level is a doorway to a tower that goes down to the kitchens, dungeon, and all the way up to the 4th floor. It's the stairs used by Azzur mostly.

The Battlement Room

There are four glass stained windows in here almost resembling the ones down in the lobby, but these ones however have no graphic art or images, it's just multi-tinted glass. Set in the center of the room is squished in this heavy table. There are two fireplaces in here one on each wall and the room is lit up either by the colorful windows or candles in holders on the walls and on surfaces. The windows cannot be seen through but the view from them would be the front yard. All the available wall space is covered in musket pistols (think Magehunter), all kinds of fancy bows and arrows, sacks of gunpowder, very special daggers and swords. All of these weapons are enchanted and when fired create a lot of explosive damages. Upon the table is a tabletop war game of sort and many scrolls and maps. The room is a bit of disorder actually. There seems to be miniatures located outside of Port Blacksand standing guard nearby the town, and blueprints of an extension to the city referred to as Azzurtropolis. Does he plan to make Port Blacksand bigger? He also is trying to incorporate an army along with his Elite guards. Whatever his plan is, he's hoping to be stronger and more advanced than Salamonis. There's also treasure maps in here revealing secret caves full of jewels and gold chests and lost cities of deserts. Anyone getting a hold of these maps would be rich beyond their dreams. There are two doors into this room from the court hall. A hidden tower with spiraling staircase is set in the corner outside this room, and is used by guards to bring prisoners up from the basement to await trial.

The servant's quarters hall

This is accessed by exiting the court hall via the back door, this plain stoned corridor stretches far along the backend of the palace and cuts off at the glass lounge. Servants use this hall. It has many window slits showing the back yard. This is where unwanted things are stored as well, so the hall is a bit messy and uncouth. It has three entrances, one to the secret tower stairs, one to the court hall, and one way far down that goes into the corridor between the Banquet and Glass Lounge rooms.

***

You have toured all of floor 2, you can now return to the foyer area and go up the bone staircase to the 3rd levels. You wonder mostly as to what Azzur is planning for Allansia and will he be successful? Could he be promoted from dictator to emperor of the western coast? After seeing the court room you are glad you don't work here, for the rules are uncanny, unfair, and deplorable here. Even the bloody drapes must be fashioned a certain way so their pleats show perfectly in a mathematical fold. It's just craziness. He must not visit the servant's cold dark corridor, for if he did he'd have a humid fit! It's still swept and dusted but it's cluttered with all kinds of things like old bear pelts, crates full of musketshot, cannonballs, sacks of hay, old pieces of wood from rooms, and broken or discontinued furniture. There are old dusty empty wine bottles too, which deem rather suspicious, as they should not be there. It's time to retrace your steps, you take a shortcut through the court room and go through one of the hidden doors to get back out onto the landing of the foyer steps.

Floor 3, turn to .